WoWS Q&A – 19th September 2016

1. We plan releasing another branch this year, in addition to the new Japanese destroyers and the British cruisers.

2. In 2017 we plan to release four new branches, and the German carrier Graf Zeppelin.

3. The depot is coming relatively soon.

4. We are seriously looking into the submarines, as they are in popular demand. They will probably not come in 2017, but likely at a later date. One alternative considered is having submarines as bots.

5. The new Japanese destroyers and the British cruisers are scheduled for 0.5.12, if they finish testing in time.

6. We do not like firing from invisibility. Destroyers firing from smoke are fine, but not battleships. We are working to change the gameplay.

7. We are satisfied with the current complexity of gameplay, and would rather make a bit more complex than simpler.

8. We are working on gameplay on high tiers towards less dominance of the battleships and more room for the cruisers.

9. We are not satisfied with the carrier gameplay, and are working on a better interface for them.

10. The lags in port will soon be addressed.

11. This year will see another major rework of the captain skill tree, and an early version of clan functionality.

12. Daily missions will soon be replaced by containers shown at Gamescom 2016.

13. We focus equally on all regions. The Russian market is most difficult, because the immensely popular WoT drains many players form ships to tanks.

14. Our most mature playerbase is in NA (average age 40 years), the youngest in Asia (25-27 years).

Update: The Russian battleships definitely not coming in 2016.

The Q&A by Vessery dated September 15:

Q: Why can the bow of the Scharnhorst (belt 70mm, rest 25mm) bounce shells from the Colorado and the Nagato, whereas the Warspite (belt 102mm plus a 25mm bulge, rest 25mm) can only bounce the Fuso shells?
A: The armor belt of the Warspite is shorter, leading to more frequent penetrations.

Q: How do multiple layers of armor work?
A: The penetration is checked every time armor is hit. For example, a shell can penetrate the armor belt, but bounce from a citadel.

Q: What was the content of a micro-patch released September 13th?
A: Correcting minor problems in the game launcher under Windows 10.

Q: Which guns shall I use on the tier 9 German battleship?
A: The 406mm are better suited for fighting cruisers, the 420mm against battleships. The same ideas apply also to the tier 10.

Q: When will captain levels beyond 12 unlock?
A: When we have the content that should come with them.

Q: How are base capture ribbons awarded?
A: You get an assist for less than 80 percent of the total cap points, and a capture for 80 or more percent.

Q: What about the 19th captain skill point?
A: It is effectively a lid. While it still can be achieved, doing so would take an unreasonable about of time. In other words, if you already have 18 points, probably you should not bother getting the next one at the moment.

BONUS: New Orleans armor will be fixed (Quote from The_Chieftain):

„OK, St Pete acknowledges there’s a few errors, and will set about fixing bits and bobs when they get around to reviewing New Orleans.They were already tracking the turret armor face, and the 32mm/102mm armor mix. I wouldn’t expect the changes in the next patch, though, if things work as I believe they do.”

20 thoughts on “WoWS Q&A – 19th September 2016”

Very happy that they dont’ want to make the game more simple but instead feel that the game needs to be a little more complex. Awesome direction. I love the “layers” of complexity in this game, and in that regards it beats WoT. Keep up the good work Wargaming!!

In this article, I see PVE (bots) mentioned as an alternative, meaning that WG would be looking into the PvP options first.

While destroyers are the typical anti-submarine ships, I dont see my Yamato throwing depthcharges just yet, so that would mean that any class thats not a destroyer is likely to be completely defenseless against a submarine attacker. I just dont see how my cruisers and battleships would work without having to be completely reliant on the few players in the team that do play destroyers, as they would have the means to counter a submarine.

So much in this game would have to be changed to facilitate submarine play that it start to sound like a Havok promise.

Oh no… subs are really not a good idea, unless WG somehow pulls off the impossible and makes it “balanced”. You know how people are screaming that CVs are out of place in the current game? Well, at least you can see the torp bombers coming. DD and their torps are a problem? Your teammates have hyrdoacoustic search and radar, so eventually you can shoot them or secondary them to death. You can’t shoot subs until they surface unless you’re armed with torps, and they’ll probably be even harder to detect than DDs. And if WG could balance that, they’d have the rest of the game perfectly balanced right now…
I’m not just saying this w/out basis. I used to play NavyField way back in the day. Few players complained about CVs since all of that salt and vitriol was directed at the subs.

I really hope that they don’t make subs only aviable for bots, but for players too. Even though they might be slow and cumbersome, they might still be very fun to play since the gameplay would differ so drastically from any other class we currently have in WoWs :)

I personally believe Submarines are balance-able.
-Maximum 2 per team
-surface detection range similar to that of DDs,
-implement a maximum dive length (example, 2minutes for high tier, 1minute low tier, etc)
-put a heavy maximum acquisition range limiter while under water (maximum range they can see a ship being like, 8km, similar to typhoons for surface ships)
-much like real life, make them much faster while surfaced
-slower then average reload on torpedoes, playtesting needed to determine this factor.
-can be detected by aircraft, regardless of diving or on surface
-aiming mechanics would be similar to non-turretted TD’s in WoT, the ship moves with the reticle.
-spawn infront of the fleet to somewhat negate their overall slow speed.
-Much like the progression of class introduction (dd’s tier 2, bb’s tier 3, cv’s tier 4) Subs would start at tier 5.
-can only cap when surfaced
-HP similar to that of DDs or less
-Hydro-acoustic search is always active when submerged, is their only means to spot targets themselves while submerged, aside from relayed info.